Flickers of Freedom

Flickerers Getting Funded

The first announcement of funding for Mele's Big Questions in Free Will grant came out today, and our very own Thomas Nadelhoffer and Eddy Nahmias (along with Kathleen Vohs and Jonathan Schooler) are among the funded, as is Joshua Knobe (along with Roy Baumeister). Congrats on behalf of the blog.

The full list of winning proposals for 'The Science of Free Will' can be found here.

Why Folk Intuitions Matter to the Free Will Debate and Why we Should Study them Empirically

In a recent thread here, John Fischer asks, “why exactly should we care what the folk think?”  He was referring to folk intuitions or beliefs about the causal role of mental states but clearly also using his “worm-can-opener” (nice!) to ask the larger question about why folk intuitions should matter to the free will debate in general.  This question has been discussed here before (and at the Garden, e.g., here and here, and Experimental Philosophy, e.g., here, and elsewhere), and I offer extensive answers in each of the papers my co-authors and I have written on experimental philosophy of free will.  But let me offer a list of reasons in this post and see if I can generate some discussion. 

What I’d really like to hear are objections from readers to any or all of these reasons.  The only plausible objections I’ve heard to doing x-phi on free will (and they wouldn’t even apply to all of the reasons offered below) are:

1. Free will is a natural kind term and once the relevant referent has been baptized (when did that happen and what was baptized?), all the work is to be done by scientific exploration of that referent.
2. Free will is a technical metaphysical term and all the work to explore it should be done by philosophers trained in the relevant issues (maybe their well-honed intuitions can be used, defeasibly, in this process).
3. Perhaps in combination with 1 or 2, it’s just obvious what free will means and what people’s relevant intuitions are, so there’s no experimental work needed.

I think 1-3 are false, but it’d be interesting to hear someone defend any of them or other reasons why x-phi work is irrelevant (see Tangent below).  Before I “go below the fold,” let me emphasize a point that has been beaten to death:  no one thinks that exploring folk intuitions alone will solve the free will debate.  No one asserts (at least not without philosophical argumentation) that the fact that “most folk believe free will is [or means] X” directly shows that “free will is [or means] X.”  Rather, some of the reasons for caring about what the folk think are as follows (these are not meant to be mutually exclusive or exhaustive):

Nahmias and Murray on Bypassing

One of my favorite recent discoveries in the free will literature is Nahmias and Murray's series of studies on what they call 'bypassing,' and I wanted to see whether people might have some ideas about how to explain their results. 

To give just one example, in one of their elegant experiments, participants were given a description of a universe ('Universe A') in which everything that happens is completely caused by something that happened earlier. Participants were then asked whether they agreed or disagreed with a series of statements:

In Universe A, what a person believes has no effect on what they end up being caused to do.

In Universe A, what a person wants has no effect on what they end up being caused to do.

In Universe A, a person’s decisions have no effect on what they end up being caused to do.

Surprisingly enough, participants tended to agree with these statements. This is a very puzzling response. If everything in the universe is caused by something that happened before, it seems that people's actions could easily be caused by their beliefs, desires and decisions. But people seem to reject that view. Why might they be doing this?

The question will surely be a controversial one, but my hunch is that the Nahmias and Murray experiments are showing us something deep and important about how people understand human action. For example, it might be that people see a fundamental distinction between being caused to do something and choosing to do it on the basis of reasons. Then, if they hear that a behavior was completely caused, they immediately conclude that it could not have been the result of a decision based on beliefs and desires.

X-Phi bleg

I'm wondering if there is any evidence for what percentage of the folk believe that we're free (and/or morally responsible) at least some of the time. I think I remember (remembing is factive, right?) that there's been some recent x-phi work on this issue. Even if I am correct in what I think I remember, I can't remember who's been doing work on this kind of issue and I quick search didn't turn anything up. So here I am asking the rest of you--has there been any work on or around this issue? Thanks.

 

The Antisocial Person: A Review of the Literature

The Annals of General Psychiatry has a nice review piece entitled, "The 'antisocial' person: an insight in to biology, classification and current evidence on treatment." I thought some of the readers of this blog might find the results relevant, interesting, thought-provoking, etc. 

Abstract

Background: This review analyses and summarises the recent advances in understanding the neurobiology of violence and empathy, taxonomical issues on defining personality disorders characterised by disregard for social norms, evidence for efficacy of different treatment modalities and ethical implications in defining 'at-risk' individuals for preventive interventions.

Methods: PubMed was searched with the keywords 'antisocial personality disorder', 'dissocial personality disorder' and 'psychopathy'. The search was limited to articles published in English over the last 10 years (1999 to 2009)

Results: Both diagnostic manuals used in modern psychiatry, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual published by the American Psychiatric Association and the International Classification of Diseases published by the World Health Organization, identify a personality disorder sharing similar traits. It is termed antisocial personality disorder in the diagnostic and statistical manual and dissocial personality disorder in the International Classification of Diseases. However, some authors query the ability of the existing manuals to identify a special category termed 'psychopathy', which in their opinion deserves special attention. On treatment-related issues, many psychological and behavioural therapies have shown success rates ranging from 25% to 62% in different cohorts. Multisystemic therapy and cognitive behaviour therapy have been proven efficacious in many trials. There is no substantial evidence for the efficacy of pharmacological therapy. Currently, the emphasis is on early identification and prevention of antisocial behaviour despite the ethical implications of defining at-risk children.Conclusions: Further research is needed in the areas of neuroendocrinological associations of violent behaviour, taxonomic existence of psychopathy and efficacy of treatment modalities.

 

MAOA and Criminal Responsibility

Matthew Baum has a new piece in Neuroethics entitled, "The MAOA Predisposition to Impulsive Violence: Is it Relevant to Criminal Trials?"  I, for one, think it is relevant no matter what one's philosophy of punishment happens to be, but I would love to have a discussion here on Flickers about the issue.  So, hopefully, folks will take the time to read the article and post their thoughts!  

Here is the abstract:

In Italy, a judge reduced the sentence of a defendant by 1 year in response to evidence for a genetic predisposition to violence. The best characterized of these genetic differences, those in the monoamine oxidase A (MAOA), were cited as especially relevant. Several months previously in the USA, MAOA data contributed to a jury reducing charges from 1st degree murder (a capital offence) to voluntary manslaughter. Is there a rational basis for this type of use of MAOA evidence in criminal court? This paper will review in context recent work on the MAOA gene–environment interaction in predisposing individuals to violence and address the relevance of such findings to murder trials. Interestingly, the MAOA genetic variants impact future violence and aggression only when combined with the adverse environmental stimuli of childhood maltreatment. Thus nature and nurture interact to determine the individual’s risk. Based on current evidence, I argue there is a weak case for mitigation. But should future experiments confirm the hypothesis that individual differences in impulse control and response to provocation found in MAOA-L men (without abuse) are significantly magnified when combined with childhood maltreatment, the case could turn into a stronger one.

p.s.  I also wanted to congratulate and thank Neil Levy for all the work he's done getting Neuroethics off the ground.  I think the journal has published some of the most interesting and important work on agency and responsibility during the past few years.  Minimally, I think the journal filled a much needed niche.